Managing Software Projects

Pre-requisites:

Computer literacy. Not essentially a
degree but should know all the words in a computer dictionary.

Must have 3+ years of experience in
a software industry. Farther you have been from software development
,better are your chances.

Must be a good impromptu orator.

Must have read all Dilbert books and
comic strips. Without them you'll run out of ideas.

Transition from developer to manager

If you are currently a developer and
aspire to become a project manager , here are the guidelines you must follow
:

Never have
technical arguments with your boss. Instead , view his ideas
with utmost sympathy and compassion, don't let him ever know that you know
much more than him, that will just hurt his ego which can be deadly
to your dreams since he holds the power not you.

Learn to highlight
even the most trivial task as an achievement. Practice
suppressing your inner-voice telling you that it was a kids job. Choose
a suitable multiplication factor for the actual time-spent on your task
along with a appropiate justification. If fixing a bug took 1 hr, tell
it took you a day.

Try to work in Odd hours. If you are
a regular employee working 40 hours a week, why work in regular hours.
That won't make you differentiated, so skip regular office hours, instead
work in night, weekends and don't forget to send in a lot of mails in off
hours as a proof of your dedication and hardwork.

Taking Initiatives. Initiatives
are of two types, taking initiatives in your own work, taking initiatives
in others work. Well everyone takes initiatives in his own work, that's
what everyone is paid for, isn't it? But learn to take initiatives in others
work, even though you might be aware of the fact that you are not needed.
If nothing else, just walk to your buddy's office and ask him what,why
and how he is doing his assigned task. Then let your boss know that you
helped him in certain ideas. That's what gives a person leadership!!

Working as a Manager

If you are a first time manager, it
is essential that you learn to secure your seat in the arena, lest someone
might steal it, same way as you stole from someone more capable than you.

Call regular
team meetings. Now that you are a manager, it's not the time
for you to think, instead learn to make things happen for you, utilize
the resources (workers). Call a meeting for any technical issue that comes
forward and let the team members do the brain storming. Once they are done,
modify their agruments a bit, and make the whole proposal looks like your
own.

Show your abilities
in reviews. Whenever your worker comes up with a document for
review, it's a fun time for you. Now is the time to prove your worth. Doesn't
mean that you have to be James Bond of software, any document is always
full of errors ( no-human is perfect). In the first pass, look for the
following errors

Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, bad sentence formations.

Check all the references in the documents.

In the second pass look for simple software bugs.

Names of variables,classes, objects, they just might not be providing enough
information

Look for bad indentation which is hampering your efforts to understand
the code.

Too less of modularity or too much of modularity, anyway it is unreadable
code.

Avoid making critical decisions. One
can commit a mistake only if one does something. Thus avoid making decisions,someone
will do the task anyway for you. If something goes wrong, you can always
join the opposition and blame him.

Disclaimer: This article is a humor, any resembelence of it to
any real life situation is coincidential.